It was dark...no, it's red. It was like inside a furnace, but for him, it was not that hot. In fact, it was warm and comfortable.

Yet, it would soon be replaced by dread and fear.

"(Run, Ifrit, run!)”

That voice haunted his dreams. He remembered that he was in a burning building, but not the details of what happened next. Either he forgot or he did not want to remember the details of what happened that day. An ear-piercing scream of terror quickly woke him up with a gasp. His eyes had not registered the bright sunlight and he grunted in pain and shielded his eyes with his hands.

"Oh, good,” said a fair, female voice. “You’re awake.”

He turned and saw her. She was a black-haired human with blue eyes. He did not know what a human looked like, so he looked at her in confusion.

“I know you’re in shock from…whatever you got yourself into,” she said. “My name’s Lilac, if it will give you a peace of mind.”

He did not understand what she was talking about, so all he could do was silently nod as Lilac prepared some tea.

Lilac tended to the Lycan’s wound through the night until she reverted to her human form came dawn. As she tried to treat the Lycan’s wounds, she noticed several peculiar features this Lycan had. The most prominent one was the pair of black horns on his head between his ears, which made him look like a goat. He had red stripes pattern on his fur and a generally rough, unkempt fur, which made him look closer to a wild dog than a wolf. The most peculiar of all, however, was his tail. This Lycan’s tail was not bushy like a wolf or a dog, but long and covered with shorter fur. Lilac noticed that the Lycan’s tail was more flexible, almost prehensile. His tail had a triangular tip, which struck Lilac as odd.

Another thing she noticed was the piercings the Lycan wore. He had four earrings, two on each lupine ear, and three piercings on the tip of his tail, all made of silver. Lilac was quick to assume that he did not like turning to human and maintained his werewolf form all the time. It wasn’t a problem for her, nor was it a problem for the villagers of Sidve, but she never thought he would put piercing on himself as if he expected it to be a permanent transformation. In fact, she wasn’t sure if a Lycan’s transformation could be permanent.

The Lycan surprised Lilac when he jerked his body up and looked around in panic. Then, the pain from his injuries started to register, and he winced in pain.

“(Where the hell am I?)” he said, which sounded like gibberish to Lilac. “(Am I on the surface?)”

“You’re a foreigner?” asked Lilac upon hearing him talk. “That’s a long way to go from where you were. Sidve’s nowhere near the region border.”

“Eh?” he said, not having any idea about what she was talking about. “Uh…uh….”

Lilac could see he had no idea how to speak Tragorian, so she sighed. She knew this would be a problem, considering the village being so far from the region border, or even any Tragorian cities. She started to wonder if he could even understand her at all.

“(Oh, no. Oh shit! This is bad!)” he said as he looked around. “(Stay calm, Ifrit. Don’t get too worked up! You got away. Take a breath).”

He turned to see the surprised and confused Lilac.

“(Okay, uhm…what did she talk about? What language…uh…)”

Realizing that thinking about it would not get him anywhere, he started making gestures, hoping Lilac would understand. He pointed at himself and said, “M-me…”

“You know some Tragorian?” asked Lilac.

“Tragorian? Ah, I…speak little,” said Ifrit with the best Tragorian he could say. “Me…from far.”

“Yes, I am aware of that,” said Lilac. “Look, you’re hurt, so I suggest you stay a while until you’re healed and fit for travel. Do you understand?”

“I…think,” said the Lycan. “You…name?”

“Name? Oh, I’m Lilac,” said Lilac. “How about yours?”

“Ifrit,” said the Lycan along with gestures to make it clearer. “Me…Ifrit. (Thank you).”

“Sorry?”

“(No matter),” said Ifrit. “You…kind.”

“Thanks,” said Lilac with a smile. “Can you stand up? You need to clean yourself first before I can tend to those wounds.”

Ifrit nodded, then he slowly stood up with slight effort. He walked into her home and noticed the firewood stove where Lilac was boiling some water. Without hesitating, he put his body near the fire, alarming Lilac. She quickly thought that he was still delirious.

“Hey, you can’t do that! Don’t…huh?”

To her astonishment, Ifrit’s wounds slowly start to heal. He also sighed in relief, during which Lilac noticed his eyes were of unnatural color. They looked like reptilian eyes and they were bright red. Staring at them made Lilac uncomfortable at how jarring they were, but she kept it for herself, lest she offended the stranger.

“Your wounds. They’re healed by the fire,” said Lilac with astonishment in her voice. “How…did you do that?”

“Not know,” he said. “Since birth.”

Lilac assumed he was trying to say that it was something he usually did since birth, something he did not know himself. Lilac knew it wasn’t her place to try and find all the information from the stranger, knowing that he would continue his travel once he cleaned himself.

But she could not help but ask anyway.

“So, where are you from?”

“I…from?” said Ifrit. “(Oh, you mean where I’m from).”

“Whatever you’re saying,” said Lilac.

“(It’s not…really a place for a human),” said Ifrit, even though he knew she would not understand. When he noticed her confused look, he said, “Drundas. I from Drundas.”

“Never heard about that place before,” said Lilac. “But I can’t expect myself to remember the whole land of Ternor and its regions down to its smallest details. Did you run from somewhere? Are you trying to go home?”

“Find…home? (No, I’m trying to get away from it),” said Ifrit.

“Hmm?”

Ifrit then realized that he couldn’t go too far and got into trouble. He was fortunate that the first person he met on the surface was a kind human who did not seem scared by his appearance.

“No…I…stay,” said Ifrit, struggling to find the right words, along with the gestures to help elaborate. “Okay?”

“I think he’s asking me if he can stay,” thought Lilac. “Well. I’m all alone, anyway. It’s better for him to recuperate first before he starts his travel again. Hopefully, he’s not going to take advantage of me, though I doubt it.”

So, Lilac decided that the horned stranger would not be a problem and let him clean himself up. What she did not know was Ifrit’s excitement of feeling the cold water in the hot summer month. It felt so alien, yet so refreshing to him. He had never thought of water as something that would bring him such feelings, possibly because the place he came from did not have water and his kind had adapted in a land without it. The fact that he had horns and piercing demonic-looking eyes apparently plucked out of a snake’s eyes was already a dead giveaway.

“(I guess she leads a very sheltered life),” thought Ifrit to himself. “(Or maybe because no one have ever seen a hellhound before).”

Ifrit bathed a lot longer than he should, mostly because he wanted to feel the refreshing, almost alien, sensation of clean water. During that time, he contemplated on whether he wanted to continue running or just stay in that village to lay low instead. But, in the end, he decided to stay. He was tired of running.

The other reason was that he felt indebted by the woman who saved him. He was aware that he would be the only one who could protect the kind woman when things got rough. He could even learn a bit more Tragorian then he knew so that he could communicate better.

Lilac, on the other hand, was interested with the stranger, though she also had her own reservations. The only reason he ran away was because of two things: either he was a criminal or he was wrongly accused. She wanted him to be the latter, but she could not dismiss the possibility of him being the former. If he ended up being a criminal, she would have to fend him off with her own werewolf form, though she knew it would not be enough. The villagers would help her, of course. Again, Lilac did not wish that to be the case. She was just being cautious.

Ifrit walked out of her bathroom, feeling refreshed and clean. Lilac let him borrow some of Hans’ clothes, given how similar their physiques were. After giving him a refreshing, clean water to drink, Ifrit thanked her with his own language.

“I know you’re trying to say thank you,” said Lilac. “If you want, I can teach you a bit of Tragorian. I don’t know anything about your language, so I hope you know what I’m talking about.”

“I…well, yes,” said Ifrit. “(That would be great).”

Fortunately for Lilac, Ifrit was a fast learner. He grasped the basic words and terms in Tragorian quick enough for him to understand what Lilac was saying. Lilac purposely tried to keep it neutral and not filled with Tragorian slangs or contractions like ‘skivvies’ instead of chores or ‘slippies’ instead of shoes.

Then, a week had passed. By this time, Ifrit managed to understand the general Tragorian and more vocabularies than he had before, and Lilac was glad that they could finally talk without guessing each other. Due to his language, his speech was accented, and Lilac sometimes confused the words he said, mostly due to mistakes in grammar. Other times, she felt that he was too stiff due to his need to follow proper Tragorian sentence. But in most cases, he learned a lot about casual conversations, helped by the fact that he knew limited Tragorian.

He also became acquainted with the villagers in Sidve when he decided to help them with labor work, specifically the heavy lifting. The problem he might had would be the fact that he did not transform into a human, which could scare the farm animals and even some villagers. This slightly concerned Lilac since he might be feared, but then no one cared since he clearly had complete control of his transformation. They assumed that he was a turned werewolf since the turned could not change forms, a fact that Lilac did not know.

After that day’s hard work, they both went home. Lilac was already cooking some food for him, though he was apparently more fixated with drinking water instead of eating the food, something that Lilac had taken notes of.

As they ate, Lilac decided to start a conversation, both to let him speak Tragorian naturally and to know him better. She was too focused in helping him speak and understand Tragorian that she did not ask who he was.

“So,” said Lilac. “Where is Drundas? I don’t think it’s a major city or town, so I guess it’s either a village or a hamlet, much like Sidve.”

“Well, uh,” said Ifrit. He was trying to find the right words to say. “It’s far. It’s somewhere you…don’t want to be.”

“Why?”

“It’s…dangerous. Not good for good ladies like you,” he said. “Bad people everywhere.”

Lilac quickly remembered that she was reluctant to have Ifrit around due to his sketchy background. So, to straighten things out, she asked, “Ifrit…are you a criminal on the run?”

“Criminal? Oh, you mean (criminal),” said Ifrit. “It’s…hard to say.”

“Look, I promise I won’t tell anyone in the village. You have been so good to all of us that I forgot asking about who you are. It’s time for you to be honest with me about this.”

“No, I am not,” asserted Ifrit. “But only for your people.”

“So, you’re falsely accused of being one?”

“Not that. I’m…it’s hard to explain. It is…complicated.”

“What’s that?”

“I…have no words in Tragorian. I don’t know how to explain it.”

“It’s fine. Whatever it is, you don’t have to worry of anything here, at least not until you got yourself in trouble. Our laws are not the laws of Drundas.”

“Oh, uh…that helps,” said Ifrit.

“At least that’s easy to sort out. Well, then. I know you’re tired. I’m going to help the tavern, so relax. I’ll bring you a pint or two. You like to drink, don’t you?”

Ifrit nodded as Lilac walked out towards the tavern where she worked for the night. Ifrit was left in her home, trying his best to relax, only to realize that it might not work when he realized that he was just running away. Still, he had no allies, only enemies. Only the vague memories of the past, mostly traumatic, could make him understand why they did so.

He ran because he was a dangerous one, especially for those who usurped his rights to the throne of the kingdom. He could try and take it back, but he found that living anonymously had its own merits, so he decided to grow as a commoner outside the city’s walls. Well, at least until his home for 15 years was also destroyed and he was forced to run.

To stave off his boredom, he turned to walk out into the forest, as he usually did for the past week following Lilac’s suggestions. There, he contemplated whether he should just leave Lilac and keep her out of his own affairs or stay to protect her and the village, given that as a hellhound, he was more capable of it and was willing to kill if necessary. Life in the Underworld was all about survival, and he survived along with his foster parents, who were killed right in front of his eyes. He killed their killers, but he was forced to run before he was overwhelmed.

He did not wish to bring that life to Lilac and the villagers of Sidve. He was an Underworlder. Lilac was a human who saved him and was completely oblivious of who he was. She did suspect him to be a criminal, which he technically was.

Again, he did not wish to take the throne of Drundas for himself. In fact, no one cared. Hellhounds did not wish for the return of monarchy and he had seen how they prospered. The only thing he did not like was how they tried to eliminate possible monarchs who might want to try and reestablish the rule.

He returned home to find Lilac was already there. It was barely an hour since she went to work, which was a little too early for her to go home.

“What’s wrong?” asked Ifrit. “You home early.”

“Yeah. They’re closing early tonight,” said Lilac. “The owner’s on holiday. He’ll be back in a week.”

“Oh.”

Lilac then noticed several eyes in the forest. They seemed to be getting closer to the house.

“Your friends?” asked Lilac, thinking they were Ifrit’s strolling companion.

“Friend?” Ifrit turned and quickly realized who they were just as they emerged from the forest. Without any warning, one of them rushed towards him with a sword, one that he easily dodged while protecting Lilac.

“(Shit! They found me!)” said Ifrit. He turned to Lilac and said, “Go! Run!”

“What’s going on?!”

“No friend. They enemies,” said Ifrit. “Go! I protect you.”

Despite the broken Tragorian, Lilac knew the danger. She discarded everything behind while she ran towards the village asking for help. Meanwhile, Ifrit was locked in combat with the hellhounds that attacked him. He managed to throw one off while he got behind the doors and locked it.

“(You can’t escape forever, you know),” taunted one of them. “(Why don’t you be a good hound and join your real family in death?)”

“(What the hell is your problem?! I don’t have the powers to take the throne anymore),” said Ifrit, while stealthily moved closer towards the fireplace. “(Just fuck off!)”

“(Oh, no, prince boy. We don’t let a Schelkz go, not if we want justice for everything he did).”

“(Who?)”

“(Who else? You bear his sins, so be a good hound and just die for us).”

The hellhounds easily break through the flimsy wooden door, but Ifrit expected this. He knew fighting them head-on, despite his skills, would be a bad idea, so if he could, he should surprise them.

He moved towards the fireplace to grab one of the fireplace pokers and hid behind the door when one of them broke through it. Ifrit quickly grabbed the hellhound’s head and shoved the fireplace poker into his head, without any hesitation whatsoever. The sharp, hot metal pierced through the hellhound’s skull through his eyes as if without any efforts, and this show of brutality clearly caused the other hellhounds to reel back in horror.

“(Oh, fuck!)” said his companion.

Ifrit knew threatening them would lead to nowhere, so he pulled the poker from his victim’s head and started walking towards the other one. He was so stunned by fear that he tripped on a rock behind him. Ifrit simply knocked him out and grabbed his sword, just as several other hellhounds from inside the forest started shooting him with guns and throwing fire grenades to flush him out. They hit Lilac’s wooden home and it started to catch fire.

Ifrit’s combat prowess was apparent when he personally dispatched most of the hellhounds attacking him as he escaped. Some were killed while others were spared. While many were deterred, others were motivated by rage after witnessing their fallen comrades, continuing their pursuit. They tried and failed to attack Ifrit just as the villagers were aware of the whole situation after Lilac asked for help.

Ifrit quickly spotted Lilac and ran towards her while swiftly decapitating two hellhounds who charged towards him. The act of violence surprised Lilac and the villagers just as they tried their best to get to safety. Many were unable to escape and were either captured or killed by the ruthless hellhounds. Others escaped, with some even turning into their Lycan forms to get away.

Lilac caught a glimpse of her house burning down. She was devastated, knowing that everything she ever had was in that house. Even then, her life came first, so she ran and ran, not even thinking about her current barkeeper outfit.